LITMIR.BIZ

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“Why not check upon us, say, once every decade? In all, our ship’s company numbers but sixteen persons. Almost anything could happen. If you were to send a department craft each ten years …”

      The Co-ordinator was shaking his head. “Your qualifications are as high as anyone available. Once on the scene you will begin accumulating information which we, here in Terra City, do not have. Were we to send another group in ten years to check upon you, all they could do would be interfere in a situation all the factors with which they would not be cognizant.”

      Amschel Mayer shifted nervously. “But no matter how highly trained, nor how earnest our efforts, we still may fail.” His voice worried. “The department cannot expect guaranteed success. After all, we are the first.”

      “Admittedly. Your group is first to approach the hundreds of thousands of planets we have seeded. If you fail, we will use your failure to perfect the eventual system we must devise for future teams. Even your failure would be of infinite use to us.” He lifted and dropped a shoulder. “I have no desire to undermine your belief in yourselves but—how are we to know?—perhaps there will be a score of failures before we find the ideal method of quickly bringing these primitive colonies into our Galactic Commonwealth.”

      The Co-ordinator came to his feet and sighed. He still hated to see them go. “If there is no other discussion …”

      II.

      Specialist Joseph Chessman stood stolidly before a viewing screen. Theoretically he was on watch. Actually his eyes were unseeing, there was nothing to see. The star pattern changed so slowly as to be all but permanent.

      Not that every other task on board was not similar. One man could have taken the Pedagogue from the Solar System to Rigel, just as easily as its sixteen-hand crew was doing. Automation at its ultimate, not even the steward department had tasks adequately to fill the hours.

      He had got beyond the point of yawning, his mind was a blank during these hours of duty. He was a stolid, bear of a man, short and massive of build.

      A voice behind him said, “Second watch reporting. Request permission to take over the bridge.”

      Chessman turned and it took a brief moment for the blankness in his eyes to fade into life. “Hello Kennedy, you on already? Seems like I just got here.” He muttered in self-contradiction, “Or that I’ve been here a month.”

      Technician Jerome Kennedy grinned. “Of course, if you want to stay …”

      Chessman said glumly, “What difference does it make where you are? What are they doing in the lounge?”

      Kennedy looked at the screen, not expecting to see anything and accomplishing just that. “Still on their marathon argument.”

      Joe Chessman grunted.

      Just to be saying something, Kennedy said, “How do you stand in the big debate?”

      “I don’t know. I suppose I favor Plekhanov. How we’re going to take a bunch of savages and teach them modern agriculture and industrial methods in fifty years under democratic institutions, I don’t know. I can see them putting it to a vote when we suggest fertilizer might be a good idea.” He didn’t feel like continuing the conversation. “See you later, Kennedy,” and then, as an afterthought, formally, “Relinquishing the watch to Third Officer.”

      As he left the compartment, Jerry Kennedy called after him, “Hey, what’s the course!”

      Chessman growled over his shoulder, “The same it was last month, and the same it’ll be next month.” It wasn’t much of a joke but it was the only one they had between themselves.

      In the ship’s combination lounge and mess he drew a cup of coffee. Joe Chessman, among whose specialties were propaganda and primitive politics, was third in line in the expedition’s hierarchy. As such he participated in the endless controversy dealing with overall strategy but only as a junior member of the firm. Amschel Mayer and Leonid Plekhanov were the center of the fracas and right now were at it hot and heavy.

      Joe Chessman listened with only half interest. He settled into a chair on the opposite side of the lounge and sipped at his coffee. They were going over their old battlefields, assaulting ramparts they’d stormed a thousand times over.

      Plekhanov was saying doggedly, “Any planned economy is more efficient than any unplanned one. What could be more elementary than that? How could anyone in his right mind deny that?”

      And Mayer snapped, “I deny it. That term planned economy covers a multitude of sins. My dear Leonid, don’t be an idiot …”

      “I beg your pardon, sir!”

      “Oh, don’t get into one of your huffs, Plekhanov.”

      They were at that stage again.

      * * * *

      Technician Natt Roberts entered, a book in hand, and sent the trend of conversation in a new direction. He said, worriedly, “I’ve been studying up on this and what we’re confronted with is two different ethnic periods, barbarism and feudalism. Handling them both at once doubles our problems.”

      One of the junior specialists who’d been sitting to one side said, “I’ve been thinking about that and I believe I’ve got an answer. Why not all of us concentrate on Texcoco? When we’ve brought them to the Genoa level, which shouldn’t take more than a decade or two, then we can start working on the Genoese, too.”

      Mayer snapped, “And by that time we’ll have hardly more than half our fifty years left to raise the two of them to an industrial technology. Don’t be an idiot, Stevens.”

      Stevens flushed his resentment.

      Plekhanov said slowly, “Besides, I’m not sure that, given the correct method, we cannot raise Texcoco to an industrialized society in approximately the same time it will take to bring Genoa there.”

      Mayer bleated a sarcastic laugh at that opinion.

      Natt Roberts tossed his book to the table and sank into a chair. “If only one of them had maintained itself at a reasonable level of development, we’d have had help in working with the other. As it is, there are only sixteen of us.” He shook his head. “Why did the knowledge held by the original colonists melt away? How can an intelligent people lose such basics as the smelting of iron, gunpowder, the use of coal as a fuel?”

      Plekhanov was heavy with condescension. “Roberts, you seem to have entered upon this expedition with a lack of background. Consider. You put down a hundred colonists, products of the most advanced culture. Among these you have one or two who can possibly repair an I.B.M. machine, but is there one who can smelt iron, or even locate the ore? We have others who could design an automated textile factory, but do any know how to weave a blanket on a hand loom?

      “The first generation gets along well with the weapons and equipment brought with them from Earth. They maintain the old ways. The second generation follows along but already ammunition for the weapons runs short, the machinery imported from Earth needs parts. There is no local economy that can provide such things. The third generation begins to think of Earth as a legend and the methods necessary to survive on the new planet conflict with those the first settlers imported. By the fourth generation, Earth is no longer a legend but a fable …”

      “But the books, the tapes, the films …” Roberts injected.

      “Go with the guns, the vehicles and the other things brought from Earth. On a new planet there is no leisure class among the colonists. Each works hard if the group is to survive. There is no time to write new books, nor to copy the old, and the second and especially the third generation are impatient of the time needed to learn to read, time that should be spent in the fields or at the chase. The youth of an industrial culture can spend twenty years and more achieving a basic education before assuming adult responsibilities but no pioneer society can afford to allow its offspring to so waste its time.”

      Natt Roberts was being stubborn. “But still, a few would carry the torch of knowledge.”

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